When & where to look for the best deals?

[NoiseCrime]

Hi,

Simple question, for those who've been around a while, broadly speaking when and where to look for best deals for Reason Rack Extensions, VST's and anything else related?

Specifically are any sale/deals better at certain times of the year than others? I've noticed a high frequency of shops/manufactures doing sales, but wonder if they really are on sale, or if they are just permanently on discount. FOMO is real, however I'm trying my best not to just go on a spending spree, at least not until I get a better idea of when the best sales/deals happen in a year.

It doesn't help that the VST space seems to have exploded in the last decade or so. I'm particularly interested in acquiring emulators/simulations of old classic synths to relive my youth, but noticed that most of the classics have many emulators from different companies. While I can easily search for best recommendations of those, its harder to know when a good time to buy might be, especially as I seem to always come across one or two that happen to already be on sale, but no clear reason why.

If this was the gaming space then I'd use a site like isthereanydeal.com in order to check for what the best deal has been for a game over the years. Does anything like that exist for vsts/plugins?

Thanks

[Loque]

I dont get the question about RE, since they can only be bought in the Reason Studios shop. Uber great deals you clearly will find in viewforum.php?f=7

Regarding VSTs
* ReasonTalk Forum viewforum.php?f=48
* vstbuzz
* jrrshop
* pluginboutique
* audiodeluxe
* audioplugin.deals
* humblebundle
* plugindiscounts
* sweetwater (if you can buy there)
* ...

[Popey]

For rack extensions as Loque said if is only through rs but they rend to have sales for black Friday time etc (as do a lot of vst devs).

If you are looking for old retro synths perhaps check out some of the other re devs for things like the legend, ES101 etc as there is a lot good emulations of old gear which could be on offer in upcoming sales.

Is there any particular devices you are after as maybe people in here can advise on if that company has frequent sales, when they have been in the past etc

[NoiseCrime]

I dont get the question about RE, since they can only be bought in the Reason Studios shop.

True, but even with Reason I feel they might have yearly sales for big events or maybe just when a new version of studio comes out?

Thanks for the list of shops I'll add them to my favourites to try and keep an eye on them.

Is there any particular devices you are after as maybe people in here can advise on if that company has frequent sales, when they have been in the past etc

lol - I have a couple, but the list keeps growing the more I learn how some of my favourite old rave tracks were made. Currently that list has been

TB303
- Sadly I had to retire Rebirth, though I did get it working on Win 10 and even XP under emulation on M1 mac.
- Got myself Acid V from Arturia. Its nice but lack of pattern select is brutal! Might pick up ABL3 sometime.
Juno 106 ( e.g 808 State - Pacific State (pad), Mr Fingers 'Can you feel it' (bass) )
- Picked up Chery Audio humble bundle, so got their DCO-106, along with 3 other synths. Seems good enough.
ARP2600 ( e.g Underworld - Rez (lead) )
- Tried the CherryAudio CA2600, but I don't think its quite an exact recreation. Will try some others, but they range from reasonable to expensive ( e.g. Arturia's )
CZ101/1000 ( e.g. Neon 'Don't Mess with this beat' (bass) )
- Got a sample sound bank pack for it, but still looking into it.
Kawai K1 ( e.g. 'LFO' - 'LFO' can't believe half the track is a single multi-note preset sound! )
- Got Nils Kawai K1v

In most of these cases I think other synths, even those included in Reason could emulate or get close to the sounds I want, but that's not quite the point. It a mix of experiencing and learning how to create the old sounds on old 'hardware'.

I'll also admit to being quite price adverse. I'm no musician and spread thin between work and hobbies as it is, so it seems a bit of a folly to spend frivolously on this stuff (atm). Ideally I look for a free VST first, though I'm somewhat limited due to using M1 Mac, and I'm not stepping anywhere near subscriptions, at least for as long as possible - bad enough Reason has to phone home, even if it is only yearly.

If I do get into this then I might be tempted to buy a bulk library, I seem to remember Arturia's collection being quite wide ranging, I liked the look of Rolands stuff, but I think that was a subscription?


Anyway thanks for the replies.

[DaveyG]

For decent, good-value emulations of vintage synths it's hard to beat Cherry Audio. Pick a synth and the 'net will argue forever about which emulation is the most authentic but I've never been disappointed with the Cherry Audio stuff. The funny thing about being "authentic" is that many of those vintage synths were not even consistent with themselves. Component tolerances and build quality meant two supposedly identical synths could sound significantly different to each other, and that's before you factor in oscillator drift and the effects of ambient temperature.

I've completely stopped buying REs and buy VSTs instead. An RE ties you into the Reason ecosystem and cannot be sold at a later date. VSTs can be used everywhere, including in Reason, and can usually be sold.

As for when the best time to buy is - there is no correct answer but try to make sure you never pay "full price" for any VST and you'll not go far wrong. I've put "full price" in quotes because some companies set daft full prices then continually discount them.

Finally, you don't want to hear this but you've already got enough synths to last you a lifetime. We all have. Not that it stops us buying more. At least software doesn't take up any room, unlike guitars and hardware synths (and the "accidental" drum kit currently in our dining room).

[Popey]

I have one of the older v collections and quite like their arp2600 emu in there. If you do go the v collection route I would look out for sales as they are usually at their cheapest when the next version is due to be released.

[NoiseCrime]

Thanks for the further replies.

Been down a few rabbit holes today looking into apparent 'black friday sales' - seems a bit early for them, but I guess that explains the various deals I'd been seeing pop up this week.

In regards to 'where' then this page from bedroomproducersblog seems pretty good with regard to collating all the various deals was https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2023/1 ... iday-2023/. I've only really started looking through it, but notice a whole section of freebies, though most require a purchase. One of them only requires a sign up though, Bassline from AirMusicTech.

Speaking of sign ups for freebies I also picked up Arturia's Augmented strings for free ( not sure where I saw that ) and a bunch of sound/sample packs from Reverb.

Talking of classic synth emulators, does anyone know of a site that has collated a list of brands that have emulated which synth? Something like a nice table where you can look up brand or synths as I keep discovering even more brands/companies that have one or more classic synth emulations and its getting hard to remember them all.

[WaxTrax]

Regarding Arturia deals -- sometimes you can get either a free synth or lower-cost one on sale, register it to your account, and then when they have larger sales like Black Friday (where they typically offer 50% off), you can sometimes get even bigger discounts.

A couple years ago I got Analog Lab Lite for free, was able to upgrade that to the full Analog Lab for $34, and then later was able to upgrade to the full V Collection for $199 during a sale.

[antic604]

- Sadly I had to retire Rebirth, though I did get it working on Win 10 and even XP under emulation on M1 mac.

Just get D16' Phoscyon instead - it's way better than ABL3.

[joeyluck]

- Sadly I had to retire Rebirth, though I did get it working on Win 10 and even XP under emulation on M1 mac.

Just get D16' Phoscyon instead - it's way better than ABL3.

I disagree. ABL3 is better than Phoscyon
And if you get the RE, you can do fun things with the CV.

[antic604]

Just get D16' Phoscyon instead - it's way better than ABL3.

I disagree. ABL3 is better than Phoscyon
And if you get the RE, you can do fun things with the CV.

That's fair.

IMO - and I've both VSTs and the RE - Phoscyon is better, because it has way more versatile distortion unit, on-board FX bank, arpeggiator and dual sequencer. According to some it's not as accurate as ABL3, but I dare anyone to tell them apart in the full mix, especially with distortion and FX.

And I support Polish developers, so

https://d16.pl/phoscyon2

[MrFigg]

Aaah. That feeling of waking up in the middle of the night and checking to find that the BF RE sale has started. Then scrolling through pages and pages of deals and then scrolling through them again until day breaks.

[NoiseCrime]

Regarding TB303 emulators, I've already got Arturia's Acid V and pretty happy with it. I would have picked up ABL3 if the RE also gave you the VST (or vice versa). Ultimately i'm not too bothered which 303 is more accurate, as I spent way too long watching video's and reading reviews and realised that these days any of the professional released emulators are as good as you need.

As for when/where to look/buy I found a few useful sites.
https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2023/1 ... iday-2023/ specifically for this years Black Friday, but looks like the blog is updated for all big sale periods.

https://plugindeals.net/plugin-reseller-price-check/
Not as good as say isthereanydeal.com for games where you have a full price history, but does provide a a list of current prices across stores.

[Rising Night Wave]

oy!

look here, for example:

https://www.audiopluginguy.com/deals/